Chopped Summer Salad (with a kick)

Firstly, I want to apologize for royally sucking and not writing in forever. Please forgive me! This past month has been beyond crazy but at the end of it all I now officially have a new job and am a year older 🙂

That being said here’s a quick, fresh salad recipe that makes an awesome and filling lunch or dinner.

Ingredients: 

1/4 an eggplant

1/2 red pepper

1/2 cup of corn

1/2 summer squash

1 vine ripe tomato

1/2 cucumber

4 small slices of hot pepper

3 oz grilled chicken (if wanted)

How to Make It:

Dice the tomatoes, cucumbers,  red pepper and hot pepper and put in a bowl with the corn

Dice the eggplant and summer squash and either bake until cooked (about 15 mins at 350) or sauté in a frying pan for about 5 minutes

Add to the bowl of other ingredients and sprinkle a pinch of salt over everything

Pour onto your plate (and if wanted add grilled chicken)

That’s it— probably the easiest meal ever 🙂

The Fireplace | Brookline

Meal: Dinner Food Reviewed: Fig and Walnut Salad Bang For Your Buck:  Experience:  Taste:  Every few weeks or so my grandmother and I meet for dinner. The Fireplace, which is located in Brookline’s Washington Square offers a cozy, sophisticated dining experience, …

Go-To Goat Cheese and Chicken Salad

This is one of my go-to salads, mostly because I love goat cheese but also because it is so flippin easy to make! Below is the recipe I’ve created but please feel free to add or subtract whatever you want. If I weren’t allergic, I probably would have added craisins into the mix (if anyone tries that let me know how it is)! 

Here’s what you will need: 

1 big handful baby spinach 

2 small vine ripe tomatoes 

1/2 cucumber

Goat Cheese (as much as you like) 

3-4 baby beets (mine were canned)

Grilled Chicken

The juice of 1/3 a lemon

Salt, Pepper, Basil

On a plate or bowl place one large handful of baby spinach. Take two vine ripe tomatoes and cut into smaller pieces (I do eight pieces each). Next slice half of a cucumber into “half moon” slices, so that each original slice is cut into two pieces. 

If you are using fresh baby beets, dice 3-4 into quarters and add to the salad. If you are using canned beets (as I did) drain all liquid from the can and rinse the beets before preparing them for the salad. By rinsing the beets before eating them you eliminate some of the sodium that was added during packaging. 

Next crumble your choice of goat cheese (I used honey goat cheese) on top of the salad. 

After the base of the salad is made, add cooked chicken into the mix. I use Trader Joe’s “Just Chicken” grilled chicken strips because they are extremely easy for me to cook on the stove top in little time. I also sprinkle a little basil on the meat while it is cooking for flavor, but you can use whatever chicken and seasoning you like, or ditch the chicken all together! 

To dress the salad shake a pinch of salt and pepper and the juice of 1/3 a lemon on top of it. I like this combination as dressing because it gives a fresh lemon taste to the salad without inundating it with flavor or making it soggy. 

Here I am eating the goat cheese and chicken salad at my desk, preparing to write this post for you all! 

Enjoy! 

The Whatever is Left in My Fridge Salad (but it’s actually good)

Last night (Friday) I rushed home from yoga to eat and get ready to meet up with friends. I considered getting take out but, I knew  had some random things left in my fridge that if I didn’t eat would likely go to waste (and throwing away food makes me crazy). So you guessed it I decided to make dinner with whatever was left in my fridge.

To my shock this thrown together meal actually turned out to be delicious and hence I am sharing with all of you so you can enjoy it too (I am aware these ingredients are random).

Here’s what I found in my fridge (that I decided to use in this recipe)

• 1/6th a head of organic iceberg lettuce
• Baby beets
• 1/4 a cucumber
• a hot chili pepper
• 1/4 a summer squash
• 1 ripe vine tomato
• goat cheese
• ground lean turkey
• 1 lime
• spices

On a plate I chopped the iceberg lettuce. I then diced the beets, cucumber and tomato and put them on top of the lettuce. I then crumbled pieces of goat cheese and sprinkled them onto the plate. I cut 1/3 of the lime and squeezed the juice over the salad.

In a frying pan I placed one serving of ground turkey (I use 2 ounce servings) and the diced summer squash.

Once the meat and squash were in the pan I added a sprinkle of basil and about 1/2 tablespoon of red curry seasoning (I am obsessed with the red curry spice from Trader Joes recently).

When the contents of the pan were completely cooked I squeezed the remains of the slice of lime on them, and added a few pieces of diced chili pepper.

I added the turkey/squash mix on top of the salad and presto, dinner is served!

Pita Mediterranean Cuisine | Boston

Meal: Dinner Food Reviewed: Chicken Schwarma with salad and sautéed cabbage Bang For Your Buck:  Experience:  Taste:  Pita is a casual, order from the counter food establishment located in Boston’s Back Bay. It serves mediterranean style food and gelato (menu). …